Zac Brown Band, ‘Goodbye in Her Eyes’ – Lyrics Uncovered

Like with many of their tunes, Zac Brown Band's 'Goodbye in Her Eyes' lyrics were birthed with help from Wyatt Durrette. The songwriter began to write the tune over a decade ago, before taking the song to Brown to finish.

"This was a song we probably wrote 11 years ago," Durette tells Taste of Country. "It was about a girl I was seeing and that moment when you kind of know that it’s over. It was that kind of thing, and I remember that moment... It was weird because I actually in my head thought of the line while it happened. I literally saw ‘goodbye in her eyes.’ You could just tell that it was going to be no more."

"I could tell that it was over / When her lips met mine / It was an emptiness in her voice / Hesitation when she smiled / She didn't have to say a word / It was just so plain to see / She found what she'd been looking for / And I knew it wasn't me," Durette and Brown wrote in the opening 'Goodbye in Her Eyes' lyrics.

"Everybody’s been through it when you’ve been in a relationship, and no matter how bad you want it, it’s not going to happen," Durrette notes. "There’s a moment in every relationship that’s ending when that moment happens … we did everything we could, it’s just not going to work. Good luck, goodbye."

"I saw goodbye in her eyes / I don't think I could change it / There's no way to disguise / We will never make it/ Should I hold on to what we've got? / Is it just a waste of time? / One thing that I know for sure / I saw goodbye in her eyes," they wrote in the chorus.

"Zac and I have a lot of songs that we just sit on because we’re really meticulous about it being right," Durrette explains of his songwriting relationship with Brown. "It’s like, ‘Well, it’s almost there, but we need to wait on the remaining 10 percent,' whatever that may be. This was one of those songs. Sonia Leigh wrote the bridge. She had another song she was writing, and it ended up being the bridge of this song."

"I know you got somebody new now / All my candles have burned out / He's gonna love the way you shine / So did I / So don't smile at me if it ain't what you need," the band sings in the 'Goodbye in Her Eyes' bridge.

"You just have to wait for the song to be right," says Durrette. "You’ve got to have patience… let the song write you; you don’t write the song. That’s kind of the way we go about it."

He adds, We sat on this one for 11 years, and we decided finally with this album that it would come out."